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April 28, 2014: One thousand Teamsters joined a conference call Saturday. Get the latest information on Hoffa-Hall over-riding the contract votes at UPS, including a leaflet and FAQs and find out what members are doing next

Teamsters are taking action to oppose concessions, stand up to Hoffa and Hall and build a movement to take back our Union. 

One thousand members from UPS, UPS Freight, YRC and other employers joined a national conference call Saturday to learn how they can take action.

Hoffa and Hall may be able to use legal loopholes and twist the Teamster Constitution and force through the UPS contract. It’s up to Teamster members to make sure that they are never in the position to do this to us again.

Download a bulletin and FAQs and get information for yourself and other members.

Sign the Online Petition to support members who are coming together to Take Back Our Union.

You can use the player below to listen to a recording of the conference call.

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Build the Movement to Take Back Our Union

Join forces with members who are building a movement to Take Back Our Union in 2016. Click here to send your question or message and to find out more.

 

April 2, 2014: With the Louisville Air Rider headed down in flames, Hoffa and Hall are considering a secret plan to impose the UPS contract.

UPS Teamsters in Louisville, Philadelphia, and Western Pennsylvania have Voted No and rejected their supplements.

Now Hoffa and Hall are considering a plan to take away their right to vote and impose the UPS contract.

Teamster members won the right to vote on supplements and riders in 1991 and have used that right in record numbers this year to reject 18 supplements and riders.

Sixty-three percent of UPS Teamsters work under a supplement or rider that was voted down.

The Vote No movement paid off and forced Hoffa and Hall to improve Team Care benefits, and won other improvements in some supplements.

Since then, Ken Hall has worked hand-in-glove with management to vote and re-vote the rejected supplements to get them passed.

But members in three areas have held out against concessions and for improvements in their supplements: Louisville, Western Pennsylvania, and Philadelphia.

These UPS Teamsters are ready to stand up and even vote to strike, if that threat is needed to bring the company to the table to bargain a fair contract.

The supplements could have been settled a long time ago if the International Union had stepped in and backed the members.

Instead, Hall has played politics and lashed out at the Local 89 leadership and the Vote No movement and tried to blame them for holding up the national contract and members' retro checks.

The company has taken its cues from Hoffa and Hall and refused to budge at the bargaining table. In Louisville, UPS has even reduced its offer.

This is exactly why Teamsters fought for the Right to Vote on supplements and riders in the first place: to stop employers from imposing concessions in supplements and riders by pushing through a contract nationally.

Before we had this right in 1991, the master contract and all supplements and riders were voted on in one national vote. That gave employers a tool to push through concessions at the supplement level.

The Right to Vote on supplements and riders changed all that.

In 2007, Local 804 members voted no and rejected their supplement. They won a better contract offer that saved 25 & Out pension benefits the company was trying to take away.

The Right to Vote on supplements stopped contract concessions and won improvements.
Now Hall is now floating the idea of imposing the UPS contract and abrogating members’ right to vote on the outstanding supplements. This plan has started to leak out from Hall loyalists.

All members need to be prepared to stand with these Teamsters and defend our Right to Vote.

UPS cannot operate without the Louisville Worldport and Philadelphia Airport which together handle a huge volume of air packages.

The Local 705 and 710 contracts covering 15,000 UPS Teamsters in Chicago, Illinois, and Northern Indiana are also not settled. These contracts are separate from the national agreement, still open, and vital to UPS’s operations.

With a united approach, our union has more than enough leverage to defeat concessions and win acceptable contracts in Louisville, Western Pennsylvania, Philadelphia and in Chicago Locals 705 and 710.  

The Right to Vote gives working UPSers leverage. Hoffa and Hall should be using it to negotiate contract improvements, not threatening to take that right away.

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“We Voted No because we oppose Team Care and want other improvements in our supplement like more full-time jobs, protecting our feeder work, and a better grievance procedure.

“The Union could easily achieve these improvements and settle the contract if they would just show some backbone for a change.

“It’s time for Hoffa and Hall to stand behind us and UPS Teamsters in Louisville and Western PA, instead of standing with the company and selling us out.”

Bobby Curry, Local 623, Philadelphia Airport

April 2, 2014: Hoffa and his number two Ken Hall raked in more than $300,000 a piece in total compensation last year according to the IBT LM-2 financial report reviewed by TDU.

Hoffa gave himself a Cost of Living increase of $4,000. Most Teamsters don’t see anything resembling that.

Hoffa’s “housing allowance” ballooned to $67,358, bringing his total compensation to $381,409.  Ken Hall also gets that outsized perk.  They work in the Marble Palace; do they live in one too?

Hall’s total compensation was $301,519.

Our union remained the same size as the year previous: 1.258 million.

Click here to review our IBT financial report of 2012. Click here to find out how to obtain a copy of the 2013 financial report for your local union.

The Teamster Rank & File Education and Legal Defense Foundation (TRF) will research  all Teamster LM-2 (and LM-3 and IRS 990) forms and will publish the results later this year.
If you have questions, comments, or want to help change our union’s financial priorities, contact TDU.

March 31, 2014: Unlike many Teamsters, James Hoffa got a nice raise last year. His salary went up by $4,000 to $300,788. But there’s more: His “housing allowance” ballooned to $67,358, so his total compensation went up to $381,409. Ken Hall gets that outsized perk also; Halls’s total compensation was $301,519.

Their appointees and International vice presidents got similar “cost of living” raises, according to the union’s LM-2 2013 financial report just filed with the U.S. Department of Labor.

Our union remained the same size as the year previous: 1.258 million.

You can review the financial report of your local union. These LM-2 reports were required to be filed by March 31.   

The Teamster Rank & File Education and Legal Defense Foundation (TRF) will research  all Teamster LM-2 (and LM-3 and IRS 990) forms and will publish the results later this year.

We believe knowledge is power, and we provide it to the members. You can review a summary of last year’s report. 

If you have questions or comments, contact TDU. If you want to help change our union’s financial priorities from officers’ perks to rank and file power, then Join TDU.

January 3, 2014: The labor movement is launching a national effort to raise the minimum wage. But Teamster wages and benefits are bottoming out under Hoffa and Hall.

The labor movement is launching a national effort to raise the federal minimum wage to more than $10 an hour and to boost local and state minimum wages even higher.

In the meantime, Teamster wages are bottoming out under contracts negotiated by James Hoffa and Ken Hall.

Even under our largest contract for the most profitable Teamster employer, UPS, our wages are falling behind.

If UPS part-time wages had kept pace with inflation since 1982, the starting wage would be over $20 an hour today. Instead under the contract negotiated by Hoffa and Hall, many UPS part-timers will start at $10 an hour through 2018.

That’s less than the $10.10 an hour that is the target minimum wage under federal legislation that will be introduced this year.

Labor unions and community allies are campaigning for even higher minimum wages in many states and local areas. For example: new legislation just won in the two largest counties in Maryland and the District of Columbia will raise the minimum wage to $11.50—raising the pay of Teamsters hired at the Landover, Maryland UPS hub in the middle of the contract term.

Teamsters should not have to wait for minimum wage legislation in order to get a pay increase.

Other Teamsters are not at minimum wage, but their pay and standard of living is falling behind. Under Hoffa Sr., a Teamster job was a ticket to the middle class. Under Hoffa Jr, freight Teamsters have seen their pay and pensions gutted while tycoons like Hoffa appointee Harry Wilson have made millions off of the concessions at YRC.

Hoffa’s pay has ballooned to $367,864 since he took office. He’s not feeling any pinch or planning any fightback. That’s up to working Teamsters to do for ourselves and that is what TDU is all about.

TDU members will be there in the campaign to raise the minimum wage. We’ll also be organizing for living wages and against contract concessions in our own union.

Good pay, quality benefits, a secure pension and some power on the job. These aren’t supposed to be exclusive perks for top Teamster officials. In TDU, we’re working to rebuild a Teamsters Union that fights for a better future for every working Teamster.

October 17, 2013: Hoffa and Hall are dishing out concessions as fast as employers can serve them up. After spending the summer cutting the healthcare of 140,000 UPS Teamsters, the Hoffa-Hall administration is now targeting Teamster pensions.

The Central States Pension Fund is lobbying Congress to eliminate key pension protections and give Central States the power to cut retirees' pensions.

Hoffa and Hall's standing with the members has never been lower. So how do they stay in office?

The $150,000 report explains part of the answer. A record 146 Teamster officials make more than $150,000 a year, and 137 get multiple Teamster salaries.

This patronage system gives Hoffa and Hall a national political machine to raise campaign funds and get out the vote at election time.

If Teamsters want to take back our union, we need a national network for the members—one that involves and unites rank-and-file members to organize for change in our locals and in the International union.

That's what TDU is all about.

It's not enough to get angry and active at contract time but then let everything go back to business as usual after the ballots are counted. We've got to get the reins of power out the hands of the concessions crew.

The next International Union election will kick off in less than two years with Convention Delegate races beginning in the Fall of 2015.

It will take 150,000 votes to win. That's an achievable goal, but it will take rank-and-file committees in local unions across the country  and a national organizaton that links us all together.

Change won't happen on its own. If we want to dump Hoffa and Hall, we have to build an organization to make it happen.

August 16, 2013: The organizers who work for the International Union have launched an online petition drive directed at the Hoffa administration.

The petition was launched on MoveOn.org and calls on the Hoffa administration and organizing director Jeff Farmer to bargain fairly with the union of IBT organizers and to maintain their present benefits and terms of employment.

Some organizers have been fired and have suits pending against the Hoffa administration. Fired organizer Tim Lewis won a judgment in June which, including his legal fees, will exceed $1.5 million.

That $1.5 million could have funded a lot of organizing drives. The court's docket summary of Tim Lewis v IBT (2011 CA 002773 B) can be found here.

Here is where you can read the petition and statement from the organizers.

August 16, 2013: In online discussion forums, many Teamsters are asking where Hoffa came from and how he became Teamster President. In response to members' questions, TDU is re-issuing two documents on the history of James Hoffa prior to his election as Teamster President.

These two thoroughly-researched documents were produced in 1996 for the Ron Carey Campaign. They document Hoffa's work and background over a long period of time. The facts in these reports have never been refuted.

The first is Jimmy Hoffa Junior: A Study of His Connections to Corrupt Elements in the Labor Movement. This documents Hoffa's cozy and profitable relationship with corrupt individuals and mob figures.

Hoffa has never been able to shake himself from this sordid history. As General President, he launched Project Rise to fight corruption. But his handpicked director, Ed Stier, resigned after Hoffa's office blocked his efforts to investigate corruption when it got close to Hoffa's key allies. "The problem is Hoffa," Stier said.

The second report is Hoffa Junior: His Record of Ties to Employers. This documents Hoffa's life-long record of siding with employers, for his own financial gain, and against Teamster members and other workers.

His recent dismal record of bargaining with UPS, ABF, UPS Freight, YRC, Republic Airways, and Gate Gourmet will be better understood if you read this history.

Feedback and questions regarding this material are welcome. Click here to send your comment or message to TDU.